I've been thinking what race to assign these guys to and lean toward drow/ dark elves, why because they are evil and sneaky and no one like them and I wanted a reason for them to develop sneakiness but I'm not set on it if you can think of a better 'fantasy' race shout it out (perhaps Kenders?)

A race at the end of the all the lines when species were being made, they&#8217;re even bad at controlling the fickle powers of Lore, the literal whipping boys and victims of all other races from time before record keeping, however recently they have been learning how to apply what they do have to devastating effect. As individuals they are no match even for the lowly goblin but they have developed advanced battlefield tactics, communications, all manner of sneakiness and are fast becoming a force to be reckoned with.

Normal spread of units available.

Can only ever hit on matching helmets, all lore cost 1 extra and take an additional hit on sword on shield when being attacked (but not during battlebacks), only give support and receive support if unit has more than two figures left in it.

Bonuses,
When playing a command card in the:
Left or right sections you may move half the number on the opposite section (round up) ie a scout right section would allow this player to also move 1 unit in the left section as well.
Central section you may move half the number of units split anyway you wish between left and right section as well.

Cards that move all units of a type grant an additional hex movement (so Red infantry can moved hexes and battle).

Birdmen of El Katrez
(think of LOTR giant eagles but garden birds instead with 4 fingered feet that are usable as human hands who can talk. No there aren't minis out there for these guys though I guess you could buy GW eagles? but you can use my replacement templates, see my userpage)

High in the mountain valleys of Spain live the Birdmen whos capital is El Katrez.

Thoughts behind my rules
1- Like birds they have light weight bone structure,
2- Their legs have evolved into arms (so no extra set of arms as well as wings),
3- They can't wear armour as it messes with their ability to fly

The Crunch
Deployment: as Dwarves
Morale: Frightened
Units available: Non missile infantry only
Movement points as cavalry
Can fly / hover over any terrain and can land in all non impassable terrain (e.g. swamps, rivers by scenario) see below for cliffs.
3 minis per unit
Take 1 hit per black flag as well as normal hits
In Melee roll 1 less dice than normal for colour
All bird men can make a Missile fire attack by flying over and dropping needle* type projectiles at 1 dice more than normal for colour on the unit below

Flight
Birdmen are either flying Low or High,
If low then can
engage and be engaged in Melee
Can not drop missiles
Provide support to friendly units as normal
can not pass over cliffs

If High
Then can pass over cliffs
Drop missiles
Cannot engage or be engaged in MELLEE by Ground based units
Can not provide support to non High flying units.
Only be hit by Missile attacks and magic and other High flying units

* 6-8" long nails that have been thinned out at one end to make flights and heat hardened tips....

Rust monsterA peaceful creature by nature that spends it's time migrating between metal deposits exposed over time. they are on occaision followed by miners seeking the next big strike and few nations have captured them and pressed them into a military role.

Blue creature

Inflicts no damage when initiating combat however it generates Lore on matching helmet and Lore.
Normal combat rules when battling back.
Can store upto 3 lore
2 Lore - rust Metal - Target 1 unit it looses any bonus strikes it may have or looses 1 dice from its attack rolls if it doesn't have a bonus hit. Further applications of this power reduce dice rolled by a further 1 to a minimum of 1.

Starts life as a large Geode type shell / egg thing with green blue energy crackling over its surface. when it hatches its a broiling mass of smoke, firery teeth and claws, something that can't quite be made out, but it induces fear in all that see it. It feeds off of that fear......

Blue Creature
The Egg can not move on its on and so will need to be 'carried' around the battle field by another unit. Once hatched it will move under its own means
6 Lore is 'spent' to crack the shell and is put onto the creatures summary card (it also provides an imprint on the creature much like animals imprint onto the first thing they see, the importance of imprinting becomes clear in a bit )
The Creature will engage the nearest unit friend or foe (normal dice off ruls if two or more are equally distant)
All lore casting goes up in cost as per following table, this lore is not returned to the normal pot but onto the creature card and is not available until the creature is destroyed

I've been considering selling my fully painted battlelore set, and starting anew, but I'm not sure it would be worth my time. Anyone have any idea what every figure in the game painted to a tabletop standard would be worth? I seem to remember an ebay auction some time ago, for some pretty sick money for just the base set painted.

I've worked over the last two years to convert Battlelore to include the main elements of Lord of the Rings. A group of us have conducted massive battles using HOTZ hex map sheets to make a LOTR battle 36 feet by 4 feet!!!!. I've created a blog to share the rules with Battlelore players. There are a few photos thrown in to show the games in action. There's a help sheet as well. The siege rules are moving on a-pace and we're developing bits using Grond and the Nazgul on Fell Beasts. Please feel free to visit the blog site and download the rules. Have a go and contribte your thoughts ( hopefully constructive!! )http://lotrbattlelore.blogspot.com

I am trying to come up with some interesting BL rule variants. As we all know, most of the scenarios consist of earning VP's by kills or capturing blazons. I thought it would be more interesting to include leaders and destructible strongholds. This would provide new & more interesting ways to reach victory, as simply killing enemy troops seems too straight forward and unavoidable. However, I can't really think of ways to achieve this since the system is really aimed at melee combat. How would the players avoid killing each other and focus on going for leaders/strongholds when enemy units are always in front of your face? Does anyone have tips on creating good house rules for playing CTF or defend the base?

I've tried to come up with balanced ways to encourage players to try and destroy enemy strongholds w/ leader inside or capture the leader and bring to friendly stronghold. But it doesn't seem to work very well as everyone will have plainly killed each other to victory before even stepping foot near the strongholds. My first attempt can be found here: http://www.daysofwonder.com/battlelore/en/battlelore_editor/ view/?id=3860&returnto=fans

My next attempt will try to incorporate some leader rules from C&C:A and focus a bit more on leaders. For example, by treating the leader more as an individual unit (giving them movement/combat abilities), players may take the leader out of the stronghold more and using them (if they provide advantages) which also allows them to be vulnerable. Basically, adding more risk vs. reward decisions to the game. Here's what I've got so far.

BattleLore w/ Leader & Destructible Stronghold rules

Leaders:
Benefits - Leaders provide (additional) bolding to the unit they are leading. A leader can lead a unit by attaching itself to a unit, this will be represented by adding a blazon to the unit. Leaders may move on their own (unattached) up to 3 hexes and battle with 2d. When leading a unit, the leader follows the unit and is bound by the unit&#8217;s movement/combat restrictions + bolding. The bolding is immediately lost if the leader is killed.

Movement - Leaders may move through friendly unit troops but not enemy units.

Dice - To kill a leader, an enemy must be able to roll 2 Sword/Shield symbols, all other symbols are misses (unless modified by lore). This combat roll can be applied to either the leader or unit. i.e. if a green banner rolls 2 S/S symbols when in combat with a unit w/ leader, it may choose to apply those hits to the defending unit or the leader. In the case of a blue unit rolling 2 S/S symbols + 1 blue helmet against a blue unit with a leader. The attacking unit must apply all 3 die to the unit or kill the leader and apply the 1 blue helmet to the defending unit.

Victory Points - Leaders are worth 1 VP if killed on the battlefield, this VP is counted separately from the unit they are leading. This means, that a unit with a leader is worth 2 VP's if both are destroyed and 1 VP if killed on its own.

Destructible Stronghold:

Conditions - When playing with Destructible Stronghold rules, a defending unit cannot defend the Stronghold by being inside the Stronghold.

Victory Points - Since Strongholds are generally guarded and hard to invade, the destruction of the enemy Stronghold will win the game regardless of the amount of VP&#8217;s required by the scenario.

Dice - When entering an enemy Stronghold, all movement/battle restrictions apply (i.e. stop and not battle on entering turn, battle/defend w/ 2d). On the next turn, the unit may attempt to destroy the Stronghold. To do so, perform a normal battle roll without battle restrictions (i.e. green units roll 2d, blue units roll 3d, lore modified combat applies). To succeed, a unit must perform 2 GREEN critical hits on the Stronghold (does not have to be consecutive). For example, a green unit rolls 2d, if both are green helmets/bonus strikes, the unit may roll for critical hits (both dice in this case). If on the critical hit only 1 die rolls a green helmet, it has succeeded in doing 1 critical hit and must successfully perform another critical hit on another turn. If both critical hits were successful, then the Stronghold is destroyed on that same turn. This means, the heavier the unit is, the more likely it will be able to destroy the Stronghold.

Wow, long post. Anyway, any thoughts? Are these interesting or bad ideas?

Hello to all of you equipped enough with both expansions and will to play this Tolkien - imitating medieval adventure! I designed it to mimick the events from the book but also to make a good Battlelore clash possible, bothering you with as few special rules as possible to still resemble these events and characters in a nice and playable way. As you can see in the "special rules" it was not easy to make this list short, but
if you take an effort to read them, you will see they are all easy both to apply and memorize. Have fun and please write the impressions, that would mean a lot to me.

From the DoW forums: &#8220;Your Giant Spider from the core game and the two promotional creature figures, the Hill Giant and Earth Elemental are all considered 1 level creatures. To deploy a creature in battle will count as 1 level token for its camp on the War Council. For your enjoyment, you may deploy any one of these when an Adventure calls for the deployment of a creature.&#8221;